Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-03-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the safety of aircraft flying over heavily populated areas of West London, in the light of the laser attacks on aircraft pilots and the possible expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The UK aviation industry has an excellent safety record and safety is monitored continuously by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) as safety regulator. The safety of the public is the first consideration in any decision-making process.

The CAA has conducted extensive assessments of the risks to aircraft of laser attacks. The CAA Mandatory Occurrence Reports (MORs) provide statistical data on the frequency and geographical location of attacks on UK aircraft. In addition, the data provides details of the rate of reported attacks in relation to the number of aircraft movements at all UK airports including London Heathrow.

The assessments are supplemented with further enhanced statistical analysis of the MORs by Imperial College London.

The Government is actively working to draw together a plan to tackle the issues around the sale and misuse of lasers, and to ensure the safety of consumers and aircraft.